Just curious. Those of you that are retired or planning to, how long have you owned your MH. Did you buy new when retiring, or did you own one already, and how old is your MH. The reason we ask is this is our first MH. By the time I retire it'll be another 6 - 9 years. By then the MH will be close to or at 10 years old. You hear of some people getting new at the 10 year point and many campgrounds have the 10 year rule. Understanding some will stretch the rule, some won't. Have you seen a increase in costly repairs and maintenance at the 10 year mark?

I'm semi retired and waited until I could use an expensive MH 100+ days a year before buying my 04 Dynasty slightly used. That was 10 years ago and I see no reason why it will not go another 10-15 which might do it for me. At this point I know this MH and I would not want to learn all the systems on a newer rig.I'd say it comes down to how handy you are at fixing things. Unfortunately buying new has plenty of problems and if the dealer is not too far away that might work out. By the time I could get my rig to a dealer I figure I can fix it myself for a lot less. Have I seen an increase in problems at 10 years??? not really. In the last 10 years the biggest expense has been replacing the TVs and Sat dish (do not buy King Dome).Am I concerned about the 10 year rule... no as most will let you in if the rig looks good or I tell them it's 8 years old because a 09 Dynasty looks much the same as a 04.

Bought my present RV when it was one year used, and I was 52 and retiring. I've had it for almost 10 years now. It is in excellent condition and hope it will last another 10 years until I down size or switch to a park model at my summer location park. Chimacum SKP park. Age is only a factor if you neglect it. Full body paint perhaps in it's future. 10 rule? I usually stay at SKP and Military base FAMCAMPS so not concerned about that. Most use it only to turn the Beverly Hillbillies away. lol Besides that, I think you'll be welcome most everywhere at any age regardless, as long as it doesn't have bondo and duct tape anywhere or mold growing on it. :)

I am sorry, as I no longer own a motor home, I cannot participate in motor home related discussions, nor offer advice. :)Evidently, it is a new rule.Just kidding with you because I know that you know what this post means.

DW is retiring in 9 days and I work for myself and will be scaling it WAY back maybe to nothing. We will be heading out for 6 months here shortly, we purchased our current MH about a year ago and its our second one. We plan to keep this one for quite a while as it has everything that we wanted. We are the second owners and it has always been serviced and maintained properly. Age I don't feel is quite as important as how well it has been taken care of.

Retirement has nothing to do with the time span we keep our motorhomes. We keep them until we feel we've gotten the most out of them without having to spend more than they're worth to keep them in good condition.We bought our first motorhome new in 2001. We drove it a little over 12 years and 100,000 miles before trading it off. The main reasons for trading it off were high mileage, obsolete televisions, satellite system, an general cost of potential replacement of appliances over the next few years. The potential cost to upgrade and replace systems and appliances was more than we could justify for a 12 year old motorhome with over 100,000 miles on the odometer.We were both still working when we bought it. My wife worked another 5 years and I worked another 6 years. Last year we traded it in on a 2013 model. Since then we have put a little over 15,000 miles on the new one. I have no idea how long we'll keep this one. If it's as good as the last one we'll think about trading it off in another 12 years, or when we put 100,000 or more miles on it.

How long are (have) you keeping your MH in retirement

John___Angela
Explorer
Aug 13, 2014
frankdamp wrote:
I retired early (57 yrs old). I was in a job with heavy travel, mainly to the Middle East and I couldn't convince my management to let me change assignments.

We bough our first MH about 18 months after retirement. It was a older 26' Class C. The objective was te see if we liked the RV life. We do, but hated that piece of junk. The floor plan was awful, the engine was a Ford 460 with a carbuator. I agree with a comment I saw in Car & Driver "Carburator is a French irregular verb that means "leave well enough alone".

We took quite a hit on the price when we sold it so we waited a couple of years until we spotted our present rig in an ad in our local paper. We've had it for four years, but haven't used it as much as we expected to. Cost of RVing has spiralled out of reach and we'll be selling it shortly.

Good morning. I'm just curious what costs of RVing have spiralled up in the last four years for you. Has it been maintenance issues etc? I know campgrounds have gone up a bit but really not that much and I know fuel hasn't changed in 6 years. Just curious. Thanks in advance.
frankdamp
Explorer
Aug 13, 2014
I retired early (57 yrs old). I was in a job with heavy travel, mainly to the Middle East and I couldn't convince my management to let me change assignments.

We bough our first MH about 18 months after retirement. It was a older 26' Class C. The objective was te see if we liked the RV life. We do, but hated that piece of junk. The floor plan was awful, the engine was a Ford 460 with a carbuator. I agree with a comment I saw in Car & Driver "Carburator is a French irregular verb that means "leave well enough alone".

We took quite a hit on the price when we sold it so we waited a couple of years until we spotted our present rig in an ad in our local paper. We've had it for four years, but haven't used it as much as we expected to. Cost of RVing has spiralled out of reach and we'll be selling it shortly.
jdevans22
Explorer
Aug 12, 2014
untill I die!
BUB1988
Explorer
Aug 12, 2014
We traded-up 5 years ago from a Pop-Up to a 20 yr old 32' Fleetwood Southwind gasser. It had 60k miles and over the next 4 yrs put 21K on it traveling from Central Florida to Upstate NY, Alabama, Florida Panhandle, etc. The only work we had to do was Tires and normal maintenance. We just up-graded to a 03 39' DP Gulfstream and are quite happy with the upgrade. Point being if the RV is well maintained age isn't an issue. We are currently about 4.5 yrs from retiring and going Full Time, but we camp at least once a month. Once we retire we are going Full Timing and not looking back. We are looking at the new to us RV lasting at least another 10.
Sully2
Explorer
Aug 11, 2014
mike brez wrote:
... We have no desire to full time maybe a month or two here and there.

Which is exactly what the wife and I intend on doing...
xctraveler
Explorer
Aug 11, 2014
We started out with a no slide 33 ft gas rig - new in '01. Started with 6 week trips and 8 weeks to 3 months while I continued to work from the road. After 3 years, 45k miles, we traded up to a '36 foot 2 slide Southwind and thought that we might have bought our last coach. I retired someplace along the way and the trips started getting more like life and the stays in our home more like vacations. After 8 years that wonderful gasser had 105,000 miles on it and the interior needed to be completely redone. It was outdated and worn out from extended living on board. I didn't think there was more than another 100k miles left before major stuff started to happen to the drive line and didn't want to sink a lot of money into the house only to have the chassis fail.

Besides I wanted a diesel! Thus 2 years ago we bought the coach in the signature. 36 feet is determined by our younger son's yard, nothing larger can fit. We seem to fit just fine in the 36 feet so it works out. I have no idea what would cause me to get another coach. I have no idea how long we will stay on the road, we turn 72 this fall and neither of us is ready to discuss it. Besides that would mean deciding WHERE to get off the road, certainly not back in NY where we have no family and high taxes.
mike_brez
Explorer
Aug 11, 2014
We just purchased the rv in my sig. I'm hoping it brings us to retirement. We have no desire to full time maybe a month or two here and there.
J-Rooster
Explorer
Aug 11, 2014
I bought my coach new 6 years before I retired! I still have it 10 years old now!
tatest
Explorer II
Aug 11, 2014
I bought a year and a half into retirement, 9 years ago. By model year, a 2004 is now more than ten years old, and I don't worry about ten year rules.

If you are thinking of going into luxury RV resorts, or long term stays, you might encounter problems with that policy.

If you are thinking about full timing in retirement, with only occasional RV use until, you might find that what works now might not so well suit your needs later, as life circumstances change. If I were going FT now, alone, I might be better off with a smaller high quality towable, rather than the "sleeps 6 to 8" motorhome my wife and I bought thinking of 1-4 week road trips with extended family.

I'm in a RV club that includes people who have been doing this for a long time, some for as long as 50 years, and except for one who bought right at retirement and used it the kast 15 years of his life, most have gone through 2 or 3, some as many as 5, RVs of different types as life circumstances changed. Retirement can be a pretty big change. Going full time is definitely a big change.
AllegroD
Nomad
Aug 11, 2014
We have at least 5 years to retirement. Expect current MH to be our retirement MH. Will not be full timing but long trips with return home to S&B.